“......?!”

Ian’s eyes widened.

His mysterious master might know all sorts of things through incomprehensible means, but there was no way he could know the details of Keith’s past.

Keith spoke calmly.

“Mamool that travel in packs are usually weak individually. Of course, they’re still far stronger than ordinary civilians, but the creatures that attacked my village were different. Multiple species had gathered together.”

“Mamool normally fight over territory,” Ian replied at once, immediately grasping the implication.

“Yes. Creatures that should never have coexisted moved as though they were a single organized force. They systematically destroyed the village. That could only happen through outside interference.”

“......”

“The demon worshipers sacrificed my village for their own gain.”

Ian frowned slightly.

“What kind of gain could possibly justify that?”

“They were trying to summon a fully manifested demon into this world.”

Ian listened quietly, but after a moment, curiosity crept into his expression.

“You talk like you heard this directly from someone.”

“I interrogated one of them after I became captain of the Holy Knights.”

“Ah... I see.”

Keith lowered his gaze toward Ian.

Because Ian had tilted his head slightly, the neat parting in his hair was visible. His head was oddly round in a way that almost seemed unreal, and when he closed his mouth in thought—as he often did—his long eyelashes stood out sharply.

Keith assumed Ian was hesitating because he feared showing too much sympathy might wound his pride.

That careful restraint only made Keith feel even more drawn to him.

No. These feelings are wrong.

Keith rebuked himself immediately.

If Ian truly wanted to avoid making him feel pitied, he never would have listened this quietly in the first place.

But the curse left behind by the dying demon still clung stubbornly to him, and before he realized it, the words were already spilling out.

“That must be why I acted emotionally back then. I never intended to defy your wishes, Lord Ian.”

“No, that’s not—”

“I apologize.”

Ian lifted his head abruptly, visibly flustered.

His master simply couldn’t abandon the weak. Even people who had once tried to kill him were forgiven again and again.

He had spared the desert bandits because their desperation to climb the Tower and have their wishes heard had been genuine. More than that, after forgiving them, Ian had even shown them a path to survive despite the fact that they had unquestionably tried to murder him.

Remembering that, Keith wondered whether he had ever possessed the right to judge others so harshly.

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. You had your reasons,” Ian said awkwardly.

As if unsure what else to do, he lightly tapped Keith’s elbow with his fingertips before patting down his forearm.

Ian’s attempts at comforting others were clumsy.

Still, Keith found himself craving the touch.

Wanting more.

Was this desire even truly his own?

Keith constantly doubted himself.

But then why should he bear this torment alone?

Ian himself had already given him the answer.

Ian had allowed him to doubt.

He had promised to remain the one person who would understand him no matter what.

Back when Keith had been most devout, he hadn’t even dared confess his doubts about God aloud. Compared to that blasphemy, the sins he carried now felt insignificant.

And yet no matter how desperately he tried to correct himself, he continued to sin.

That was why he wanted to confess everything.

Because somewhere deep down, he believed Ian would save him from the guilt dragging him toward hell.

“No. I do need to apologize.”

“......?”

“What I just said wasn’t entirely true.”

Ian blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain. But first...” Keith hesitated briefly before speaking in a low voice. “Lord Ian, please hold me.”

“......?”

Ian’s eyes, already large to begin with, widened dramatically.

He actually took a step backward.

For a split second, his gaze drifted somewhere else entirely, as though he were staring blankly into empty air.

Keith caught the strange reaction immediately.

Then Ian snapped his eyes back toward him, looking utterly horrified.

“I thought the curse activated! What the hell is wrong with you?”

......?

Keith stared at him in confusion.

Why was Ian so convinced the curse hadn’t activated?

As though tearing open his own chest to expose what lay inside, Keith spoke heavily.

“Lord Ian, the curse still affects me. I couldn’t even bear watching you embrace that boy from the Traitor Clan.”

“Wait. Hold on. Since when did I ever embrace him?”

Out of everything Keith had said, that was apparently the first thing Ian chose to argue about.

It seemed Ian genuinely didn’t consider his own actions unusual.

To him, they had carried no special meaning at all.

A sharp ache pierced Keith’s chest.

“You comforted him. You pulled him close and soothed him with that gentle voice of yours.”

At the time, Keith had felt as though his heart were burning alive.

“You scolded me, and I thought I understood my place after that. But I was wrong. You’re someone who offers comfort to anyone suffering, yet I foolishly convinced myself that kindness belonged to me alone. That’s why I was consumed by jealousy.”

From what Keith had seen, Ian seemed almost completely indifferent to romance.

His heart overflowed with compassion, yet his mind remained so rational and cold that Keith couldn’t even imagine him falling in love with anyone.

Then why did Ian have such scandalous rumors surrounding him? 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Because he was kind to everyone.

Ian stood frozen, lips slightly parted as he listened to Keith’s confession.

Keith couldn’t blame him for being shocked.

After all, the knight chosen by God had violated one of the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not covet.

“And it wasn’t only then. When you shielded him. When you stopped me in the prison and protected him instead—I was furious. Jealous. I couldn’t stand the thought of your attention lingering on someone else longer than it lingered on me.”

“......”

“When I first met you, I already felt petty. Even then, you risked your life to protect that boy from the Traitor Clan, didn’t you?”

“......”

“To you, he must have seemed incredibly precious. You protected him as though I might hurt him.”

“No, that’s not...”

“Just thinking about it hurt.”

Keith continued speaking.

Before God, there could be no lies.

And yet even now, he felt as though he were disguising his sins in prettier words, trying to soften their ugliness.

It felt like peeling away his own skin and exposing the filth hidden underneath.

“I became anxious. Bitter. I kept wondering whether I truly mattered most to you. I hated seeing even the smallest portion of your attention directed toward someone else.”

“......”

“I am cursed. As you said, the boy from the Traitor Clan—Frederick—was probably nothing more than a pawn. Your judgment cannot be wrong.”

Keith meant every word sincerely.

He had never doubted Ian.

Nor had he doubted the dwarf.

Whether Frederick’s tears were genuine or not no longer mattered. What mattered was that Ian had accepted him as an ally.

Ian often described himself as someone with “sharp instincts,” but Keith believed Ian’s judgment ultimately leaned toward mercy.

Ian could see through people better than anyone else, yet his compassion often led him to forgive flaws Keith himself never would have tolerated.

Still, Keith acknowledged the dwarf’s ability.

There had been no deceit in his words.

And if the dwarf spoke the truth, then the Traitor Clan had been falsely condemned, and Frederick was simply another victim.

Keith truly pitied him.

But the moment Ian embraced Frederick in comfort, that pity vanished entirely, replaced by something uglier.

“When I told you not to pity me, I was being selfish,” Keith admitted quietly. “What I truly wanted... was for you to stop pitying everyone else.”

After finally exposing the twisted emotions that had burdened him since the prison incident, Keith felt strangely lighter.

“What should I do?”

He placed his hand over Ian’s, mimicking the gesture Ian had used earlier while comforting him.

Ian had been so lost in thought that ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) his hand remained limp, leaving Keith loosely holding his forearm instead.

Unable to empathize with others’ pain.

Consumed by jealousy.

Driven by selfish desire.

Was this how demons behaved?

Was he becoming one himself?

Even if Ian would never abandon him over something like this, anxiety still gnawed at him.

As though afraid Ian might pull away, Keith slowly threaded their fingers together.

Ian’s hands were soft.

In stark contrast, Keith’s palms were rough and calloused from years of training.

The moment Keith brushed his thumb across the back of Ian’s hand, Ian jolted slightly, as though finally snapping out of a daze, and looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Keith.”

At last, Ian spoke.

“Yes?”

“Well... the curse definitely hasn’t activated, okay?”

Even Ian himself didn’t sound fully convinced.

“If you say it like that, you shouldn’t use the word ‘definitely.’”

Keith tilted his head slightly, genuinely puzzled.

“How can you be so certain?”

“God told me— no, wait, I mean my incredible powers of observation. Anyway, that’s not the important part right now!”

Then what is? Keith wondered silently.

“If the curse takes control of me, I could lose myself and hurt you.”

“It hasn’t activated, so what exactly do you want me to do? Throw you away?”

“Please hold me,” Keith said seriously. “And comfort me.”